Our roads may differ, but safety standards shouldn’t

 Malaysians should not be subject to unequal levels of road-safety protection simply because a road falls under a different jurisdiction.

From Wan Agyl Wan Hassan

Malaysia does not lack road safety standards. We have engineering manuals, design guidelines, Road Safety Audits and experienced professionals across government. 

But does every Malaysian receive the same minimum level of road-safety protection, regardless of who manages the road? 

A motorcyclist does not become less vulnerable when moving from a federal road onto a state road. A parent taking a child to school should not need to know whether the road outside the school belongs to the public works department (JKR), the state or a local council. 

An elderly person trying to reach a bus stop does not know which authority manages the crossing in front of them.

For road users, it is simply our road system.

Yet our roads are planned, designed and maintained by different levels of government. Federal roads, state roads, expressways and local authority roads have different functions, responsibilities and funding arrangements.

There are good reasons for these differences. An expressway should not be designed like a residential street. A rural road has different needs from a busy town centre. A kampung road cannot simply follow the same design as an urban arterial in Kuala Lumpur.

I’m not suggesting that every Malaysian road should look the same, but asking whether every road should meet an agreed minimum safety level. 

Malaysia has already set the direction through the Malaysia Road Safety Plan 2022–2030, which targets a 50% reduction in road deaths by 2030 and identifies safer infrastructure as one of its priority areas. 

The ambition is clear. The challenge is making sure the entire system helps deliver it.

When a serious crash happens, we question if the driver was speeding, whether the motorcyclist was careless or whether enforcement was adequate.

But they should not be the only questions.

Was the road designed for the speed vehicles actually travel? Could people cross safely? Were motorcyclists properly considered? Was the junction designed to reduce dangerous conflicts? Was the road properly maintained? Had development around the road changed how people were using it?

And when someone makes an ordinary human mistake, does the road environment help prevent that mistake from becoming a death or serious injury?

That is the thinking behind the Safe System approach. People will make mistakes. Our roads should be designed so that those mistakes do not routinely become fatal.

This is particularly important in Malaysia because motorcycles are part of everyday mobility. Any road-safety framework that does not consider motorcyclists from the onset will struggle to reflect the reality of our roads.

The same applies to pedestrians, children, older people, persons with disabilities, cyclists and people walking to and from public transport.

Road safety cannot therefore be measured only by how efficiently vehicles move. It must also consider how safely someone can ride to work, walk to school, cross a road or reach a bus stop.

We found that Malaysia’s challenge is not the absence of technical guidance. We already have substantial engineering and planning standards. The question is whether their application across federal, state and local roads ultimately provides a common minimum level of protection. 

We’re not saying our existing system has failed. It is about strengthening what we already have.

JKR’s own Road Safety Audit guidance recognises the importance of greater consistency in how safety audits are managed and implemented across different authorities. 

Our road environments are also changing.

A road originally built mainly to move traffic may eventually be surrounded by houses, shops, schools, factories and bus stops. More people start walking and crossing. More vehicles enter and leave roadside premises. Motorcycle movements increase.

The road may carry the same classification, but the way people use it has changed. Our approach to safety must be able to respond to that change.

This is why Malaysia should begin discussing a common national road-safety floor. 

The principle is simple. Different roads. Different functions. Different local contexts. One minimum level of safety. 

A school zone should provide an agreed minimum level of protection whether it sits beside a federal, state or local road.

Pedestrian facilities should reflect the actual speed and risk of the road. Motorcycle safety should be considered in barriers, road surfaces, intersections and other conflict points. Road Safety Audits should identify serious risks and ensure they are properly addressed.

Roads should continue to be assessed as traffic, development and communities change. 

This does not mean replacing existing JKR standards or taking decision-making away from states and local authorities. Neither should this become a federal exercise imposed on them. 

A national safety floor must be developed together, recognising the responsibilities, expertise, local conditions and different implementation capacities of each level of government.

This matters because not every authority has the same resources. A large city council may have significant engineering capability. A smaller municipal or district council may face very different constraints.

If we agree on higher national expectations, we must also discuss technical support, capacity building, funding and realistic implementation. 

That is why I do not believe we should begin with another directive, another manual or immediate legislation.

We should begin by getting everyone around the same table.

Malaysia should convene a National Roundtable on Safe Road and Street Standards, bringing together federal, state and local government, alongside our road engineers, planners, researchers, road-safety institutions and representatives of road users. 

And it should start with one simple question: what minimum level of safety should no Malaysian road be allowed to fall below?

From there, we can examine what already works, where greater consistency is needed and where states and local authorities should retain flexibility.

We can also identify roads with the highest risks and progressively improve them. 

Start with the areas where intervention can save the most lives. Test the approach across federal, state and local roads. Measure the results. Learn from them. Then determine what technical, regulatory or funding changes are actually necessary.

It should help us deliver the national road-safety ambition we have already committed to.

Malaysia already has capable institutions, engineers, planners and road-safety professionals. What we need now is to bring that expertise together around one common principle:

A Malaysian should not receive a different minimum level of road-safety protection simply because a road falls under a different jurisdiction.

Our roads may serve different purposes. They may be designed differently. They may be managed by different authorities. But the value of the person using them does not change at the jurisdictional boundary. 

That is the conversation Malaysia should begin now. And getting federal, state and local government around the same table is the right place to start. - FMT

Wan Agyl Wan Hassan is the founder and senior adviser of MY Mobility Vision, a transport think tank.  

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.